The first thing I noticed was the "hat line." Sadly, these hard-working fellows frequently suffered black lung disease from breathing the coal dust. It wasn't just dirty. It was dangerous and unhealthy. Having said all that, I greatly admire this photograph's honesty and realism.

People today have no idea of how ubiquitous the use of coal was before around 1950. Even into the 50s-60s, many places still burned it. Even my high school had a huge underground boiler room that looked like the engine room of the Titanic. Black lung was not confined to miners, but they did have it FAR worse, virtually 100% of them ended up with it.